Productive Productivity

This was a good weekend. Unlike last weekend, which was 50 degrees max and 19 degrees min most of the days, it was 70 and sunny Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Egg, Z and I went to the playground to fly a kite (and some of us went to slide on the slides) went to dinner on Friday (OK. Is it dinner if it’s 4 o’clock? Really, it was a late lunch.) With wine. On the patio on the way to Sedona. I was fighting a cold so we just came home to have a fire and watch TV.

Saturday, feeling mostly healed, Z and Cleo and I went running and then there was much house-cleaning and laundry-doing then a good bit of writing done by me thanks to the editorial suggestions of Egg. Then, we went over to some people’s house—our first visit at the home of someone who lives in this town. They had a 2.5 year old and a 18 month old. Z played with the little girl (yay! A friend for Z!) while we ate guacamole. We also walked up the hill to a block party (other blocks’ parties are even more odd than one’s own block parties) for which I’d made a frittata (thanks to the brilliant suggestion of Little Hands) and hummus. No one ate it because we were so late they’d finished off the savory chapter of the pot luck and had moved onto the dessert portion of the evening. We took both back to the new friends’ house. Perhaps they finished it off after we left? I can only hope. They cooked some chicken wings from Sam’s Club. Z liked them a lot. We came home and ate peaches and yogurt and then went to bed at 9. Productivity plus new friends plus block parties equal exhaustion.

But Sunday was by far the most productive day of the three. Egg took Z to the park again—to play disc golf and to slide and then to the grocery store. My list will look so much more productive in bullets:

• Finished essay about demi-glace.
• Made bread.
• Began to fix essay about Z and butter.
• Took Cleo running.
• Read for Grad Class.
• Showered.
• Made delicious salad of smoked turkey and turnips.
• Went to MoveOn.org party.
• Called MoveOn-like folks in Virginia to get them to volunteer (stressful but not nearly as as calling undecideds).
• Stopped at Ace for Egg to get him some clear silicon caulk to cover the nails on the roof (I had no idea how many kinds of silicon caulk they have. I stared at tubes for 15 minutes until I found the right one).
• Raked and stuffed 5 bags worth of pine needles. They’re everywhere and seem to be a fire hazard. Some of our neighbors seem to rake them up, some don’t. So we’re doing a half-assed job and doing some of them.
• Made guacamole.
• Sat on porch and played letters with Z.
• Moved inside. Egg set up the stereo (our last box! We’ve been listening to the iPod magic player for 2.5 years. We never unpacked it in GR. I think we may stay here for awhile.)
• I found and dusted speakers.
• Danced to music with Z.
• Made tacos.
• Watched Mad Men.
• Read student essays while Egg gave Z a bath.

Went to bed when? That’s right. 9 o’clock. Thank god we’re on Pacific Time and the sun has been down for 3 hours already so it doesn’t seem entirely lame.

Now, I’m ready for another weekend. Instead, I have two presentations this week (one about publishing, another about PhD school), 16 more essays to read and comment on, 3 student meetings, hardcore advising now that students are registering for spring semester and trying to graduate in the spring, plus a dinner party on Friday and, I hope, some submissions going out the door.

Next week will be also busy but soon we go south to visit our friends and then it’s winter break. Well, my birthday, then Thanksgiving and then winter break. November. What a great month. Almost as lovely as October.